http://www.futurecycle.org/LeePassarella1.aspxhttp://www.futurecycle.org/LeePassarella3.aspxPoem <h1>Instinct</h1>They’re known as <span style="font-style: italic;">nimbostratus</span>,<br /> these clouds that look as if drawn<br /> with a straightedge: gray ledge<br /> of rock. A dirty waterfall of rain<br /> <br /> sheers from them. All around,<br /> the sweaty air moils; tree leaves<br /> swim, seething and sinuating<br /> through rapids, exposing the quick<br /> <br /> silver of their ribs, their undersides.<br /> Equivocal birds zigzag down<br /> current, fumbling in a whorl<br /> of leaf tatters, feeling their way<br /> <br /> toward the never-before-<br /> seen shoals called <span style="font-style: italic;">home</span>.<br /> Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.futurecycle.org/LeePassarella2.aspxPoem <h1>November Where He Grieves</h1> <h3>Feast of St. Andrew, November 30</h3>Late autumn. Where autumn lingers,<br /> a slim feast. In side yards, the spoon<br /> mums serve up paucities for the eye:<br /> cankered saffron, motley salmon<br /> and puce—this is the body/<br /> <br /> this the blood. It is theophany as murder<br /> of the innocents: in house corners,<br /> burning bushes gutter and keep mum.<br /> The ornamental pears wear copper<br /> and blood-orange, leaving a salt tang—<br /> the smack of old pennies—on the eyes.<br /> <br /> In the hollow, young gumtrees,<br /> whip-slender,<br /> bloody-palmed.<br /> Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT